Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Music Non Stop: new (sort of) Iced Earth

I am a pretty big fan of Iced Earth. They were one of the first bands I started listening too outside of Metallica & Megadeth. Matt Barlow's vocals were a huge part of that. He sounded like Paul Stanley (KISS) at times. He was the voice of Iced Earth, heck he's #3 on my top 10 vocalist list. After 9-11 he decided he should do something and quit the band to be a police officer. He was replaced by Tim Owens, who is a great vocalist, but it didn't fit Iced Earth. So Barlow came back to record another album, but realized he couldn't do it anymore. So enter Stu Block of Into Eternity fame. Now Stu has a pretty killer range. I listed him on my top 10 vocalists awhile back too.

I was interested on how he would fit into Iced Earth...well wonder no more. They re-recorded Dante's Inferno with Stu on vocals and I have to admit it's pretty good. He sounds like a better fit than Tim Owens ever did. His vocals fit the music naturally, sometimes he sounds just like Barlow. I will say that he adds a little bit of the "death grunts" in there, and it fits perfectly. He doesn't go cookie monster, but lower than Barlow did. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Now if we can just get some of those classic riffs from Night of the Stormrider and Burnt Offerings...


by the way this is a 17+ minute song...enjoy the ride.